Maria Helena Vieira da Silva

Portuguese, 1908–1992

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva

Portuguese, 1908–1992

Maria Helena Vieira Da Silva rose to prominence as the best known Portuguese artist—and one of the few women—on the post-World-War II Paris art scene, and became the first female artist to receive the French government’s prestigious Grand Prix National des Arts in 1966. Within this “School of Paris,” as it was called, Vieira Da Silva represented a unique approach that was less gestural and more geometric than the dominant Art Informel style. She melded her early schooling with the French CubistFernand Léger with other modern styles, like Futurism and Constructivism, to create paintings that resembled abstracted urban grids and united multiple perspectives into a fractured sense of space.

Maria Helena Vieira Da Silva rose to prominence as the best known Portuguese artist—and one of the few women—on the post-World-War II Paris art scene, and became the first female artist to receive the French government’s prestigious Grand Prix National des Arts in 1966. Within this “School of Paris,” as it was called, Vieira Da Silva represented a unique approach that was less gestural and more geometric than the dominant Art Informel style. She melded her early schooling with the French CubistFernand Léger with other modern styles, like Futurism and Constructivism, to create paintings that resembled abstracted urban grids and united multiple perspectives into a fractured sense of space.